Yesaya 2:9

2:9 Men bow down to them in homage,

they lie flat on the ground in worship. ¹ 

Don’t spare them! ² 

Yesaya 6:12

6:12 and the Lord has sent the people off to a distant place,

and the very heart of the land is completely abandoned. ³ 

Yesaya 10:23

10:23 The sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, is certainly ready to carry out the decreed destruction throughout the land. ⁴ 

Yesaya 14:15

14:15 But you were brought down ⁵  to Sheol,

to the remote slopes of the pit. ⁶ 

Yesaya 23:10

23:10 Daughter Tarshish, travel back to your land, as one crosses the Nile;

there is no longer any marketplace in Tyre. ⁷ 

Yesaya 32:17

32:17 Fairness will produce peace ⁸ 

and result in lasting security. ⁹ 

Yesaya 66:21

66:21 And I will choose some of them as priests and Levites,” says the Lord.

[2:9]  ¹ tn Heb “men bow down, men are low.” Since the verbs שָׁחָח (shakhakh) and שָׁפַל (shafal) are used later in this discourse to describe how God will humiliate proud men (see vv. 11, 17), some understand v. 9a as a prediction of judgment, “men will be brought down, men will be humiliated.” However, these prefixed verbal forms with vav (ו) consecutive appear to carry on the description that precedes and are better taken with the accusation. They draw attention to the fact that human beings actually bow down and worship before the lifeless products of their own hands.

[2:9]  ² tn Heb “don’t lift them up.” The idiom “lift up” (נָשָׂא with לְ, nasa’ with preposition lamed) can mean “spare, forgive” (see Gen 18:24, 26). Here the idiom plays on the preceding verbs. The idolaters are bowed low as they worship their false gods; the prophet asks God not to “lift them up.”

[6:12]  ³ tn Heb “and great is the abandonment in the midst of the land.”

[10:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “Indeed (or perhaps “for”) destruction and what is decreed the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, is about to accomplish in the middle of all the land.” The phrase כָלָא וְנֶחֱרָצָה (khala’ venekheratsah, “destruction and what is decreed”) is a hendiadys; the two terms express one idea, with the second qualifying the first.

[14:15]  ⁵ tn The prefixed verb form is taken as a preterite. Note the use of perfects in v. 12 to describe the king’s downfall.

[14:15]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew term בּוּר (bor, “cistern”) is sometimes used metaphorically to refer to the place of the dead or the entrance to the underworld.

[23:10]  ⁷ tc This meaning of this verse is unclear. The Hebrew text reads literally, “Cross over your land, like the Nile, daughter of Tarshish, there is no more waistband.” The translation assumes an emendation of מֵזַח (mezakh, “waistband”) to מָחֹז (makhoz, “harbor, marketplace”; see Ps 107:30). The term עָבַר (’avar, “cross over”) is probably used here of traveling over the water (as in v. 6). The command is addressed to personified Tarshish, who here represents her merchants. The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has עבדי (“work, cultivate”) instead of עִבְרִי (’ivri, “cross over”). In this case one might translate “Cultivate your land, like they do the Nile region” (cf. NIV, CEV). The point would be that the people of Tarshish should turn to agriculture because they will no longer be able to get what they need through the marketplace in Tyre.

[32:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “and the product of fairness will be peace.”

[32:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “and the work of fairness [will be] calmness and security forever.”